Islamabad: Five members of the transgender community sustained injuries in Mansehra district of Hazara division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in a shooting incident and were rushed to Abbotabad’s Ayub Medical Complex.
The condition of four of them is stated to be critical.
According to details, the suspect, Sabtin Fida, was angry with one of the transgenders, who had stopped seeing him. A local transgender representing Hazara Transgenders Association, Gul Jee, told media the suspect had reached his estranged transgender friend’s house and opened fire while she was taking meals along with four others.
“This is a common practice and we transgenders are living under perpetual threat,” she said.
Transgender rights activist and recipient of Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Nayyab Ali, termed the situation in KP as “quite deplorable and threatening”.
“I rushed to the Ayub Medical Complex after the incident and tried to sort things out for the injured transgenders,” she said. “There is no separate ward for transgenders.”
All the five transgenders are being treated in male wards, said Nayyab Ali. “Besides, we had to purchase medicines as the hospital’s pharmacy had run out of them,” she said.
‘KP worst province for transgenders’
According to Nayyab Ali though there is a general indifference towards the transgenders in the country but the situation is the worst in KP. “I call them survivors as almost every other day, they face threats, attacks and discrimination,” said Nayyab.
She called for establishing transgender protection centre in KP like the one set up in Islamabad.
“It is good the KP government had allocated Rs200 million (Dh4.096 million) for the protection centre but that money cannot be spent on rehabilitation of the survivors of such attacks,” she said
80 killed
According to Nayyab Ali in last three years more than 80 transgenders were killed but unfortunately not a single person was sentenced.
The local police either leave a number of loopholes in the cases or society forces them to go for compromise and forgive them.
The social pressure and little support from police or state leaves no room for the family of the victims and they have to ultimately forgive the aggressors, said Nayyab.
According to KP police department, the Mansehra City Police arrested the suspect in record time - two and a half hours - and police also recovered the pistol used in the firing.
A police official said that the accused was having a friendship with one of the injured transgender persons but when another man came to meet her, he was infuriated and allegedly opened fire indiscriminately.
